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Posts tagged ‘ePassport’

Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport is currently testing facial recognition technology made by Portuguese firm Vision-Box. KLM is conducting a three-month trial of facial scanning technology at the Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport. Passengers must register at a kiosk near the gate to participate by scanning their passports, boarding passes, and, of course, their faces. Three-dimensional facial recognition scans measure dozens of features such as jawline and distance between the eyes.

European citizens with biometric passports can use special “ePassport” gates at major airports to get through border control, such as these in the UK, which are also open to citizens of other countries like the US and Canada who register in advance

In the United States, Global Entry patrons enter via booths that check people’s identities against biometric data. Private biometric screening company Clear also scans a passenger’s fingerprint or iris with speedy lanes available at 20 airports across the US, and Clear says it plans to expand to two others in the coming weeks. Passengers still have to go through security screening but enter through a dedicated aisle. The company said it has 700,000 members.

Moreover, it’s totally legal for a US Customs and Border Patrol officer to ask you to unlock your phone and hand it over to them. And they can detain you indefinitely if you don’t. Even if you’re an American citizen.

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Canada rolls out its first redesigned passport in a decade, that will carry a microchip and a bigger price tag.

Passport Canada said the new ePassports will improve security and making it more difficult to forge a Canadian passport — long a target of international forgers because Canadian passports carry with them visa-free entry into many countries. The new chip enhance security, travel documents features images of classic Canadian heritage such as the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and iconic geographic scenes, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. The images will double as additional security since they’re watermarked, another anti-forgery device.